Free Open Source HTML5 eBook Creator
The Baker framework is a free open source ebook creator, a platform to create books for the iPad and iPhone. The framework was developed by a team of Italian software geeks, allowing designers and web developers to transform fixed-width HTML5 pages into an e-book format and subsequently publish the finished product.
All publishers have to do is follow the Apple App Store submission guidelines. The first step involves creating a HTML5 version of your book with fixed width of 768 pixels that works and looks fine using Safari in iPad, iPhone or via downloadable support CSS at Baker’s site.
Keep all files in a flat directory called book and name the html files according to their page number (eg. 1.html, 2.html ….) which is the hpub format. The naming convention is still somewhat strict, but that will change over the next few releases.
In the final step to create the ebook is to download the Baker Framework and follow the simple instructions contained in the readme.txt file:
- Rename the Xcode project
- Include your book
- Include your icon
- Follow the App Store submission instructions
You can check out a sample book created by the Baker folks, 5×15 Tokyo.
Casali and his team hope their creation will lead to more beautiful e-books and digital magazines on the iPad, and for other WebKit-enabled devices later.
You can download the Baker Framework files at the official site, and you can also join the project itself on GitHub.
